Letters from Elder Travis Neuberger called to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia

Monday, September 24, 2012

yu saikhan dur saikhan

Another great week in UB, cool mornings and warm days making ideal conditions for the weekly basketball.It’s the kind of weather where it’s great when you’re playing, but a bit chilly when you’re not.Azaar Elder Boyd and I paired up with a decently tall RM and ran the court for 6 or 7 straight games. Interrupted only slightly when a car had some problems (the guy didn’t know how to drive stick) pealed out and ran full out into the wall at like 30 miles an hour.Everyone was OK. The car was not.The scariest part was that I was standing in the line of fire until the last second, just getting out of the way. An hour later we were all watching the security tapes and it was super close. Truly missionaries are blessed physically and spiritually.

In other news I also met a Saudi Arabian in the supermarket, got kicked in the stomach by a drunk man and shared my testimony in English (those are three separate events).

Truly this week was super productive as we took on several new investigators and keep progressing with others.Our biggest problem right now is just not enough time in the day to meet with everyone. Because of English instruction our remaining schedule is super tight. I’m also teaching a class on Saturdays at the church (free of charge. Tell your friends) because Elder Woodward moved over to Bayanzurkh over the transfer (Super low key transfer BTW). Anyway ... we are counting our blessings because I’m sure some Elders over in Germany would take half our investigators in a heartbeat.

Tuesday was absolutely fantastic this week.Even with our super late 2:30 district meeting we still got in three visits.But the amazing part was that we invited all six people that were in the lessons to be baptized and went six for six.Now it’s up to us to continue to meet with them, and up to them to have their own personal experiences to build a testimony and prepare for baptism.

Wednesday was a split with Elder Williams before the end of the transfer and was quite productive for English.An all day English teaching event that ended up really cool when a student asked me if I liked America or Mongolia better.I turned that into a 15 minute speech about how it doesn’t matter where you live and that the most important things are family and friends and that’s what’s going to draw you to love any place.Not sure the student was expecting that lengthy of an answer, but what a fantastic experience.

Even though this transfer was small, on Friday night there was still no companion for Elder Williams who was supposed to pair up with a temporary missionary for the transfer.By Saturday morning it was clear that nothing was going to get worked out before the end of the weekend, so he tagged along with me and my companion for Saturday and Sunday. He is easily the most humble, easiest going, nicest Elder in the mission. We had a great experience giving a blessing to a friend of a member who just got in a auto accident and broke her arm and we sat for 5 hours of two wards of church on Sunday.Sidenote: Mom always said, “learn the piano so that you can play on your mission."It’s true that basically no one plays the piano, but the high tech keyboards here allow you to just press a button.The hardest thing to find is a chorister, and though I’m no Mr. Linn I stepped in on several occasions on Sunday. Everything else has been pretty quiet just doing the best we can. Looks to be another great week, although it really always does. I had some great scriptures to share but left those on a paper at the apartment. Just read D&C 64. It’s great!